I noticed Cartridge World stores popping up in and around my neighborhood for about a year now like mushrooms. I didn’t really know what they were - were they selling game cartridges? My wife went in to one and learned that they specialize in refilling printer cartidges at a deep discount to purchasing a new one. Talk about filling a need.

They’re growing like mad, too, expanding all over the place. This may look like a good idea on paper, but with growth comes growing pains. For instance, customer experiences like these can’t be helping them too much.

Like the author of that post, I wonder whether it’s the case of one bad employee, one bad store or more indicative of a company-wide problem. Based on the experiences I;ve had with the company and have heard from other’s, I’m inclined to think it’s a reasonably isolated case. I think the blame, however, can be placed on the company’s rapid rate of growth. My impression here is that they’re working so hard to expand that they may be slipping a bit in the training department. Knowledge scaling in this day and age shouldn’t be that difficult, but it does require managers to find good hires who are willing to take the effort to stay informed rather than warm bodies to clerk the counters.

My takeaway: Growth is a good thing. But sacrificing quality for that growth is not. It’s better to have a handful of profitable stores staffed by knowledgable, dedicated people than to have dozens or hundreds of stores staffed by folks who see it as no more than a job. I think the mantra of “Grow Big Fast” is a dotcom leftover that really needs to be replaced with “Grow Big Smartly”.